The Downfall of a Generation
by Wrong Name Tag
Summary: Written as a Hermione/Ron piece, but turned out as something a bit different.


Once, he told me I was all he ever needed 

-*- 

_ "Hermione--" _

"You're crazy, Ron." I had turned away, out of his reaching arms, and refused to look toward his mournful, pleasing eyes. We were seventeen then, about to graduate from Hogwarts. 

"I'm not crazy! I love you. It feels as if I've always loved you, and it just took my mind a little longer than my heart to realize it. I do--I do love--" 

"Stop! Don't say it again." So scared was I that my body was shaking uncontrollably all over, my stomach doing cartwheels and my mind trying to outrace and refuse what my heart wanted. My heart was screaming "I love you, too" while my mind exclaimed "No! This could never be anything solid, anything true." I was caught in the middle. 

He frowned as I fell into the corridor wall, sliding down to the ground. For comfort, I pulled my knees to my chest--but Ron was a step behind, dropping down to my side and throwing an arm about my shoulders, which I flinched at. Never before had he been so close that I could smell the very scent of him and have it overwhelm me as it did that day. 

"Why are you crying? I didn't mean to make you cry. It's just... I love you, and I mean it when I say it." A chubby thumb reached up and wiped a tear from my eye. I didn't flinch that time. 

"I'm scared," I breathed out. 

A soft smile washed over his features; this admission appeared to have pleased him. "Me too. But, with you, nothing will ever get me down. You're all I ever need." 

It was my time to smile, and I sniffled through a half-laugh, half-grin--and finally gave in to looking up at him. 

His features had changed much since I had first met him on the train to school, looking young, carefree, and eternally foolish with dirt on his face and what I considered to be a lopsided grin. It was evident he'd grown much: He was, almost impossibly, a foot taller than he had been that first year. Ron had let his hair grown out longer and his brows had grown bushier; that and his much broader chin combined caused him to appear like the brooding type--which he definitely was not at that age. 

On the floor, my smile grew as my eyes locked with his and I sniffled once more. "I love you too." 

-*- 

But everything is different. That sulky, brooding character is him. Never had he been fully prepared for the pain and suffering that is reality. So naive. Lord Voldemort's killings have been getting closer and closer to him, attacking our friends and Ron's coworkers in the ministry. 

And, now, Ron had been hit right where the heart is: Home. 

"Ron--" I reach a hand out toward him, just as he had nearly five years ago, and just as I did, he moves away. 

"Not now, Hermione." His voice is hollow; void of all emotion. Even more I yearn to reach out and hold him, but I don't dare. 

Away is where he walks from me; away and into ashes. Into the ashes of what was once his home. The Weasley Burrow, and all its occupants aside from the youngest Weasley boy, were gone; deceased and lost forever. 

"You can't--" 

"The hell I can't," he mutters without me even getting the chance to say what I wish to say. He knows me to well; he can read my mind. Just as I can read his. 

"You can't bear this on your own. Think of Lupin--" 

"Dead because he couldn't keep his emotions in. Dead because he lost control and decided vengeance was something to bring upon _Voldemort_ by himself--though I'd be the first to admit that last bit was rather intelligent of him." 

"--and Dumbledore--" 

"Might as well be, he's been gone so long." 

"--and Harry--" 

This time I stop myself. Harry is not one to bring up, and most certainly not one to bring up now, but Ron doesn't care. He rambles on as if I had never even spoken. 

"And Hagrid? Dead. Seamus? Getting himself killed, no doubt. Parvati? In an insane asylum. Neville? God knows where he is--" 

"Ron! Get a grip! Let's go home! Let's leave!" I fall down before him, grabbing at the hem of his robes while my knees are sinking in an inch of ashes made from wood and what once was most probably the body of a Weasley. "_Please_." 

He looks down at me, and shakes his head. Against his will, a tear falls from his eye. "I can't Hermione. I can't." 

"You need to." 

"You want me to." 

"You need me." 

"I need nothing anymore." With that, he turns away from me and walks to what was once the center of his house and picks up a handful of ashes and runs the soot through his fingers, staring at them as if they were a puzzle he could piece together again. So naive. 


End file.
